


Take A Breath

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Series: The Distance [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anger, M/M, Pack, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8810350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: Derek started to figure out just how broken things were between Scott and Stiles.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part three, and the last of what I already had written.

Derek only woke up again because Stiles was nudging him in the side. “Dude, c’mon,” he said, and when Derek blinked his eyes open, it was to see the entire pack standing in Stiles’ room. He bolted upright immediately and regretted it when the blood rushed from his head.

 

“How’re you both feeling?” Lydia asked gently. She was closest, sitting on the side of the bed next to Stiles, a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Better,” Stiles said, sitting up much more slowly than Derek had. “Or like I’m in my own body again at least.” He smiled reassuringly at Lydia, who turned her gaze upon Derek. When he stared blankly, she raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I’m good,” he said, though he barely felt it.

 

“Liar,” Stiles muttered. Derek shot him a glare, but he wasn’t feeling it. He became aware of the blanket tightening near his feet and looked to see Liam hesitantly leaning against the bed, one knee resting there. Stiles nodded at him and a second later he was wedged between Derek and Stiles with his arms wrapped around Stiles like a vice. For a second Derek flashed back to when Stiles wouldn’t touch anyone and wondered how much had changed since he left them behind.

 

“I told you not to go,” Liam said, voice muffled.

 

“I know.” Stiles managed to wrap an arm around Liam’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.” There was a general noise of assent.

 

Malia gently grabbed Stiles’ foot over the blanket and sat cross legged on the end of the bed so she could look at them. Derek realized that the only person not actively touching Stiles was Scott, leaning against the wall. He looked uncomfortable and a little scared. “Stiles—”

 

“Look, Scott, I don’t want to argue right now,” Stiles interrupted him with a sigh. “Can it just…can it wait?” Derek felt a flare of anger at the defeated tone of voice, but Scott’s mouth snapped shut like he’d been slapped.

 

“Please tell me you’re going to move back to California,” Lydia said. “Transfer to Berkeley with me. It’s only a few hours from here and you won’t be _alone_. Stiles…please.” Derek had never heard her plead for anything before. It was somehow more upsetting than the way Liam was slowly wrapping himself around Stiles like an octopus. The way Stiles didn’t answer hurt even more.

 

Malia, of course, was the one to address the elephant in the room. “Are you still feeling him, Derek?”

 

“No,” Derek answered, at the same time as Stiles asked, “What?”

 

“Derek’s the reason we found you,” Malia explained. “He called Scott because he could tell something was wrong. That’s how we knew to go looking for you.”

 

“You could… _feel_ me?” Stiles turned to Derek over Liam’s head. “What does that mean?”

 

“I felt it when they shot you up with wolfsbane,” Derek said quietly. “And then I could tell your body was fighting it. Cora’s alpha, he said that sometimes a bond can form between members of a pack.”

 

“Like how you knew that Scott was dying when Jackson was the kanima?”

 

“No.” Derek shook his head. “Not like that. I could feel what was happening _to_ you, every second of it. With Scott, it was more intuition. It was probably a bit dulled to me because you were fighting, but at first I couldn’t really hold myself up against it. I lost control, almost turned.”

 

“We haven’t seen each other in two years,” Stiles protested. “Are we even still pack anymore? Were we ever?”

 

“I thought so, for awhile,” Derek said.

 

“Why couldn’t I feel him?” Scott spoke up. “I’m his alpha. I can feel Malia and Liam no problem. Even Lydia, to an extent.”

 

“You rejected him when you sent him away,” Derek said. He felt his eyes flash blue with slow-burning fury, but he pushed it down. “It’s the reason why I stopped being Isaac’s alpha in everything except name back when the alpha pack was trying to get me to join them. I rejected him, so he became yours. Jackson rejected me when he left for London and became no one’s. You rejected Stiles, so now the bond is broken.”

 

“I never meant—”

 

“But you did,” Derek interrupted. “You told him to leave. For whatever stupid reason, and what good did it do, Scott? Look what happened anyways. The only thing you did was make it harder to protect him and for him to protect you as well.”

 

“I thought it would be better.” Scott sounded broken.

 

Stiles barked out a laugh so unlike himself that Derek flinched, felt Liam go tense. “You thought it would be _better?_ Scott, the only thing you wanted was me gone. You told Lydia to go too, but you haven’t been able to look me in the eye since what happened with—since what happened. I fucked up one too many times, right? College was just the perfect opportunity to get away from me.” Scott opened his mouth, but Stiles held up a hand. “I need you to leave.”

 

“Stiles—”

 

“Please just go.” Stiles wasn’t looking at Scott anymore.

 

Scott stayed where he was, face going stubborn the way it used to before he said something he thought everyone else should believe too. “Scott,” Lydia said softly. Liam jerked back when electricity crackled through the air. Derek looked to the window first, but he caught sight of Stiles’ fingers and the bolts that danced between them. “Go,” he said tonelessly, but his eyes were almost black with the magic clouding them. That was what made Scott move, and the front door slammed shut seconds later.

 

“Call me later, okay?” Lydia brushed a light kiss to Stiles’ cheek. She reached across to touch Derek’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Derek. I—thank you for saving him.” She squeezed lightly and tilted her head at Liam and Malia.

 

Derek and Stiles were left alone.

 

Slowly, the tension around Stiles faded until he was purely himself again. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I—I didn’t know how angry I was at Scott until just now.” He shook his head. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

 

“Defending me, I guess.” Stiles rubbed at his eyes and then just left his hands there, covering his face. “This whole time all I wanted was to come home, come back to the pack. I was going to go to Berkeley with Lydia before…but Scott told me I wouldn’t be safe unless I was…and for awhile I tried to convince myself that he was actually concerned for my safety, but he just didn’t want to have to look me in the eye anymore and pretend everything was okay.”

 

“Why…?”

 

Stiles raised his face and he looked broken. “Not now,” he whispered. “Please.”

 

Derek swerved straight into a new sentence faster than he knew he could. “The others really miss you,” he told Stiles. “Liam especially.”

 

Stiles smiled sadly. “I know,” he responded. “He calls me at least once a week pretending he needs help with homework and then just talks for hours. The kid really gets under your skin.”

 

Derek nudged him softly. “He’s not the only one.” He was still exhausted and he could tell Stiles was too. “Come on,” he said, carefully pushing him to the bed and bringing the covers back over the both of them. “You’re still healing.”

  
Stiles didn’t protest except to turn on his side and look at him. “I’ve never had any sort of pack bond with any of them.” He bit his lip. “I didn’t think humans could. Mason never did either, and he and Liam are closer than anyone I’ve ever met.”

 

Derek shrugged. “I don’t know why, Stiles. I just did.”

 

**

 

Stiles called his school the following day to request finishing the semester online. Derek listened to him tell the lady on the other line that there was a family emergency and he was needed at home. She was very understanding and agreed to pull a few strings for him. Stiles smiled ruefully at Derek when he hung up. “I knew having an in with the course counselor would be a good idea.”

 

Lydia went back to Berkeley the day after that, stopping by the house first. “Please transfer,” she whispered, hugging Stiles hard. “I miss you.”

 

“I’ll think about it,” Stiles promised, cheek pressed to hers.

 

To Derek’s surprise, she hugged him too. “Are you sticking around?” she said in his ear so that Stiles wouldn’t hear. Derek barely nodded, but she left looking satisfied.

 

The sheriff had taken the next few days off to spend time with Stiles. When Derek tried to say he would find somewhere else to stay, he was waved off. “You’re not going anywhere,” Sheriff Stilinski said sternly. “You stay as long as you want.”

 

When night rolled around and Stiles dragged Derek upstairs to his room, the sheriff didn’t even react except to wave a hand and call if they needed anything. Derek took the offered clothes from Stiles and made a mental note to have Cora mail his stuff over. It stopped being a mental note when he came back into Stiles’ room, freshly showered, to see Stiles talking on the phone with her.

 

Stiles looked up a little guiltily and mouthed, “Sorry,” before saying, “Hey, Cora, Derek’s back.” He handed the phone over and grabbed his stuff to go shower himself. Derek watched him go.

 

“Don’t get mad at Stiles for answering your phone,” she said immediately.

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Good, because I called about five times before he did answer to tell me you were showering.”

 

Derek chuckled. “A little excessive, isn’t it?”

 

“Forgive me for still having nightmares about you being stabbed in the gut with a metal pipe,” she retorted. He immediately felt guilty. “Stiles seems alright.”

 

“He’s better than he was,” Derek agreed. “As much as he can be.”

 

“Why the hell was he in Chicago?”

 

“Something happened between him and Scott.” Derek lowered his voice, even though it was impossible for Stiles to hear from across the hall _and_ over the shower. “He told Stiles he needed to get out of Beacon Hills for ‘safety’ or whatever. I don’t know why.”

 

“Complete bullshit probably.” He chuckled a little at that. “So I’m packing up your stuff to ship over,” she went on. “It’s not a lot, you didn’t come here with very much to begin with.”

 

“You’re sending my stuff?” Derek had been ready to ask anyways, but his tone came out incredulous and he could practically feel Cora wince as if she wasn’t across the country.

 

“Well yeah,” Cora said. “Is that okay? I just…I was talking to Henry and he said that a bond like yours and Stiles is something really special. Something must’ve triggered it after all this time, probably Stiles’ magic.” She was speaking really quickly, as if afraid he would stop her. “Your bond is pretty much impossible since he’s human, so something in him must’ve been calling out to you this whole time, or you to him. The magic must’ve just…boosted it a little. The thing is, it’s _important_.”

 

“I can’t feel him anymore, Cora,” Derek admitted. “It stopped as soon as the wolfsbane left his system.”

 

“But you don’t want to leave, do you?” It wasn’t really a question, and he couldn’t say no. He could see her tiny smile in his mind’s eye as she said, “Text me the Stilinskis’ address, okay? I’ll get your stuff to you.”

 

God, he was going to miss having her around every day.

 

**

 

“You never used to really touch anyone,” Derek said before he could stop himself. He and Stiles were on either side of the couch, Stiles’ feet stretched out to rest in Derek’s lap while he typed away on his laptop. It was comfortable, so of course Derek had to say something to ruin it.

 

Stiles stopped typing long enough to raise an eyebrow at him. “Neither did you, unless it was to beat someone up or seduce a poor unsuspecting citizen of Beacon Hills.”

 

Derek rolled his eyes. “I was twenty-two and my sister had just died.”

 

“I was sixteen and my best friend became a werewolf and tried to kill me his first full moon. Try again.”

 

Derek shook his head and smiled. “What changed?”

 

“The mutual life saving helped,” Stiles told him, mouth quirking. “And you kept coming back and helping and never asking for anything in return. It’s kind of hard not to trust someone who cares as much as you did.”

 

Derek didn’t know what to say. “I—I trusted you too,” is what finally came out.

 

**

 

Derek’s stuff arrived and Stiles cleared out a drawer for him in his own room, despite there being an extra. The sheriff helped him unpack while Stiles was going to pick Liam up from school one day in April, and when Derek asked about the other room, he smiled a little bit. “It’s more storage now,” he explained. “We don’t even keep a bed in there anymore.”

 

“I don’t want to invade Stiles’ space…”

 

Sheriff Stilinski looked him in the eye. “He’s a lot better for you being here. I know he sleeps better with someone else in the bed with him, because when Malia used to sneak in through his window every night he never had nightmares. When they broke up…son, I can set the other room up for you, but in all honesty I think this is good for you too. And I know you care about Stiles.”

 

“Of course I do,” Derek said stupidly.

 

The sheriff put a hand on his shoulder. “He cares about you too.”

 

Like he did every other night, Derek offered to make a blanket nest on the floor. Stiles, already in bed, looked unimpressed. “Dude, it’s been a month. Just get in already.”

 

“Don’t call me dude.” But he slid under the covers beside Stiles on his side (because he had a side now) and turned on his side to face the other. Stiles closed his eyes and turned onto his stomach, asleep a few seconds later. Derek watched him for a little while, entranced by the tiny twitches of Stiles’ fingers and how his breathing quickened for a few seconds before settling again. He fought the urge to curl around Stiles and put a hand over his heart so he could feel as well as hear its steady beat. He told himself that watching and listening was enough.


End file.
